The Toll of Foolishness
by Kiekow
Summary: *AL'S POV* The two brothers finally find a way to bring their mother back, but it doesn't turn out anything like they expected. ORIGINAL HUMAN TRANSMUTATION FROM AL'S POV


The Toll of Foolishness

"Water, 35 liters. Carbon, 20 kilograms. Ammonia, 4 liters. Lime, 1.5 kilograms. Phosphorus, 800 grams. Salt, 250 grams. Saltpeter, 100 grams. Sulfur, 80 grams. Fluorine, 7.5 grams. Iron, 5 grams. Silicon, 3 grams." Edward and Alphonse Elric scurried back and forth in their father's laboratory, carrying small piles of various minerals and a bucket of water to a large metal dish in the center of the brightly lit room.

Alphonse almost dropped the water, hot enough that the heat had burned his hands through the bucket, causing Ed to gently admonish him.

"Right. Now the constructional formula." Edward handed Alphonse a thin piece of chalk tied to an inflexible stick. Together, they drew a highly intricate Transmutation Circle around the dish, carefully designed over the last few years.

The Circle seemed to glow scarlet in the light of the lanterns. Outside the house, a storm raged furiously. Ed pricked the tip of his finger with a knife before handing it to Al. "And finally, we need some soul data." They held their fingers to the powdery grey mass of elemental components in the dish, a single drop of crimson blood falling from each into the shapeless conglomeration and absorbed by it.

"'Kay, this is it, Al." Ed grinned at Al as they both crouched and pressed their hands to the Circle.

Golden light grew from the labyrinthine array, whirling around the room. It bathed the brothers in its hopeful light, blowing their hair back as the pages of endless books ruffled nervously behind them.

Suddenly, a black streak arced through the golden light, staining it a dark, eerie purple.

"Ed, something doesn't feel right…" Alphonse looked toward his brother before gasping in pain. From the center of the Transmutation Circle grew long, black appendages that coiled around his small frame, pulling him away from his brother. His body began to disintegrate, flesh disappearing rapidly into nothingness.

"Al!" Edward yelled and rose to his feet to reach his brother before collapsing to the floor. His left leg was gone.

"Brother! Ed! Help!" Only Alphonse's torso was left, his hand outstretched toward Ed.

"Al!" Edward screamed, clawing desperately along the floor to Al, fingers almost touching the younger's when he vanished.

"Hello."

Alphonse found himself in a blank white void, stretching on into eternity with no horizon nor end, hand still reaching for a sibling that was not there. Panting hard, he looked around the void, finding only a massive stone gate behind him, carved with alchemical script and diagrams, standing free of any wall or fence, both of which nonexistent in the enigmatic gap between space and time. "Who said that? Who's there?"

Suddenly, the outline of a young boy sitting cross-legged appeared in front of Alphonse. Even though it was faceless, it seemed to be staring right at him.

"Who're you?" Alphonse asked hesitantly.

The figure beamed, raising its hands to the lack of sky. "Oh, I'm so glad you asked! I am called by many names. I am the world, I am the universe, I am God, I am Truth, I am all, I am one. And I am also _you_." Truth pointed at Alphonse.

Behind Al, the gate opened, revealing a single, large eye, endlessly staring into the void. More black appendages extended from it, grabbing Alphonse and dragging him into the gate. "You have dared to knock on the door. Now, the door is open." Truth spoke calmly from his spot in the void.

Alphonse screamed with terror as the gate closed behind him.

"Quiet, child. This is what you wanted, isn't it? I will show you _the truth_."

As Alphonse was pulled through the gate, information flooded his mind. Information about everything, alchemy, the world, the universe, nothing was left from him. Grasping his blond head with the hands of a child, he felt that it was about to burst from the torrent of knowledge. Squinting open his eyes, he saw the gleaming silhouette of his mother ahead of him and reached toward it.

"Mom!"

With a flash, Alphonse opened his eyes to see a darkened laboratory, covered in blood and broken vials of miscellaneous fluids. Around him stretched a chalky Transmutation Circle, parts of it washed away by the crimson liquid. At the far end of it was Edward, one hand grasping his left knee and staring in horror at him. "Mom?"

With a burning, asphyxiating pain, Alphonse coughed blood from between deformed, yet still humanoid, jaws. He moved a hand to wipe it from his face when he realized that it was a long, bony, ebony black arm, skin leathery and unfeeling. His vision swayed as with vertigo before fading into nothingness.

Alphonse didn't remember opening his eyes, but was instantly confused as to his whereabouts. It seemed that he was in their father's laboratory, but blood stained the floor and broken lanterns were strewn about the room haphazardly. Wondering if he were perhaps sick and was hallucinating this disconcerting situation, he lifted a hand to his forehead and was surprised to feel nothing, yet hear a long metallic clang. Moving his hand to eye level, he saw that it was clad in armor, but he could not feel it. In fact, he couldn't feel anything.

On the verge of panic, Alphonse cried out for his brother before hearing a ragged breathing hissing close to the floor beside him. There, Edward sat, hunched over with his left hand feebly trying to close the hole where his right arm used to be. Bandages, long soaked through with blood, covered the knee of his left leg, below which there was nothing.

"Sorry, Al. All I could get for my arm was your soul…" Ed gasped.

"What about mom? Did it work?" Alphonse panted hurriedly.

Edward deliberately looked away from the Transmutation Circle in the center of the room, moaning, "Don't look, Al. It isn't human."

The body of a pitch black, bony figure, contorted in unnatural ways glared at the brothers. An exposed ribcage crowned a skeletal head with dull ruby eyes. This was not their mother.

Alphonse held Edward tightly to his chest, staring at the bloodied, distorted body of the creature.

"No! How did this happen?" Alphonse held a quivering hand to his face, though he could not feel it. "Big brother, your theory was flawless!"

"Yeah… There weren't any mistakes in the theory…" Edward pulled his gaze from the monster amid the Transmutation Circle to the scarlet of his own blood staining his left hand. "We were the ones who made the mistake…"


End file.
